Latest news

July 4 2014

A weekend of celebration in Horatio’s Garden

Horatio’s Garden’s summer weekend of celebration proved to be a great success with well over one and a half thousand visitors in attendance.

The celebrations began on Friday evening with a summer drinks party in Horatio’s Garden. With laid-back jazz provided by the wonderful Teresa Shaw and sculptures on exhibition by Mark Coreth, it proved to be an enjoyable evening in the sun. An auction raised an incredible £9,000 for the charity.

On Saturday over four hundred guests, many of whom were former patients and staff of the spinal centre, came from across the south and south-west to Horatio’s Garden to celebrate the centre’s 30th anniversary. With cream teas, face painting and morris dancing, the rain couldn’t dampen the spirit of the event. Sister Sen Peralta, who has worked at the spinal centre for over ten years, made an amazing celebratory cake which was shared by the guests.

The sun shone throughout the day for the Food and Plant Fair in Horatio’s Garden on Sunday. Over a thousand people came to taste and buy the wide range of artisan foods and unusual plants on sale. Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall opened the fair with a speech of support for the charity and its work supporting patients with spinal cord injuries and chatted to the stallholders, sampling their products. He also spent time chatting with many of the current patients from the spinal centre who were at the fair. To see photo’s from the day, visit the gallery here.

The weekend’s events raised over £24,000 for Horatio’s Garden. This will go towards the new garden room which is on-track to be built in September. The heated, glass garden room will help patients to enjoy Horatio’s Garden, even on the coldest of days.